The passage fell rapidly downward, a reaching gloom where flash beams were pale fingers and echoes sounded hollowly even in this ghost of an atmosphere. Davenant could make out enough branch tunnels to wonder how anyone ever found his way here. Like all small, rapidly cooling worlds, Ganymede was riddled with caves.

  After another lengthy and silent walk, they found an airlock door. It seemed to be from a spaceship. There was another defensive emplacement before it, and another discussion with the guards. At last they were sent into the lock chamber. The pump was old and rickety, it took a long time to flush out Ganymede’s air and replace it with a thin oxygen-rich mixture. Davenant’s helmet was frosted over and blinded him.

  “Awright. Through here—stop—take off yer suit.”

  Davenant and Kruse stripped down to the form-fitting coverall which was standard underpadding. Kruse was dirty and tired, skin drawn tight across jutting bones, a thick stubble of red beard on his jaws.

  I suppose I look just as bad, thought Davenant.

  There were several Outlaws about them, gaunt, undersized men in worn coveralls. Some of them wore ornaments—hammered copper rings in nose or ears. All carried daggers which seemed to have been beaten out of native iron. They were more interested in the captured airsuits than in the prisoners.

  “How about seeing your chief?” asked Kruse.

  “Take yer time,” muttered someone, and spat.

  Kruse bristled. “Look here,” he snapped. “I told you we were from Earth. In fact, we’re Planetary Engineers. You probably don’t know what that means, but believe me, it’s important. We have word for your chief which he’ll be glad to hear, but if you don’t treat us right the Order has means to make you do it.”

  That seemed to impress them a little. One of them traced a grimy finger over the suit, apparently impervious to the chill which was still on its exterior.

  “Not Ganny make,” he said. “Mebbe they be really from Earth.” He spoke as a man at home might have spoken of Avalon.

  “No weapons,” said one of the two whom the Engineers had taken.

  “Of course not,” Davenant said loftily. “I tell you, we belong to the Order. Do you think we need to lug hand guns around?”

  “Well—” A hill man scratched his tangled whiskers. “All right. Come along.”

  Two others fell in behind, with cocked crossbows. The rest trailed after, their eyes lit by a dull curiosity.

  The caves and tunnels here had been little improved save that fluoros were strung to illuminate them. Davenant decided that a section of the caverns must simply have been blocked off, with airlocks installed here and there, heated, and ventilated. No system of tubes for that—there must be only a few power fans mounted near the oxygen renewal plant. The air felt dank and stagnant.

  The populated section was a series of narrow tunnels in which shallow caves had been chipped or blasted. Ragged curtains served for doors. When one or two of these were drawn aside as someone came out, Davenant saw a pathetic bareness within, a few boxes or stones for furniture. The dwarfish, near-naked women and children who swarmed and chattered around the convoy seemed unnecessarily dirty. Behold the noble savage!

  “Can’t be more than a few thousand,” muttered Kruse. “Is this all the Outlaws there are?”

  “I suppose so,” answered Davenant. “I heard in X that there were several such villages once, but that only one was believed still to survive. If the Cincs didn’t get them, something went wrong with the air plant or the power or—”

  His revulsion was becoming an enormous pity. They couldn’t even surrender, these poor starveling troglodytes; X had no use for them except as a unifying, ineffectual enemy.

  Further along, they passed a communal kitchen. Steam pipes from the nuclear plant had been laid to heat food which seemed to be mostly synthetics.

  The passage debouched on a wide cavern at whose farther end was a real door, native iron. A clumsy idol of black stone loomed before it, and two men armed with modern rifles—presumably stolen—lounged nearby on guard. There was a jabbering conference, and one of the sentries ducked inside.

  Kruse switched to Basic to speak to Davenant. “Have you any idea what we’re going to tell the grand high panjandrum?” he asked.

  “Depends on what he’s like,” said Davenant. “It had better be good though, or we’ll end up in a stewpot.”

  The guardsman reappeared. “In,” he grunted. As several pressed behind offering to cover the prisoners, he ordered, “No, just them two.”

  When the door clashed shut, Davenant had to struggle to suppress his astonishment. The chief seemed to own a suite, several rooms formed by plastiboard partitions. There were carpets on the floors, chairs and tables, a shelf of books. The man who stood before them was tall for an Outlaw, his long gray-shot hair and beard was neatly combed, his overall faded but clean. Three women, presumably wives, scuttled out of sight.

  There was a silence. “From Earth?” asked the Outlaw ruler at last.

  “Yes.” Davenant moved forward.

  A pistol leaped into the man’s hand. “Easy,” he warned.

  “We don’t intend violence,” said Davenant. “We jumped your scouts because they attacked us, but spared their lives. All we’re after is a chance to talk to you.”

  “Awright. I’m Roberts-John, boss o’ Jupiter City. Come in an’ siddown.”

  The Chief led the way to a sort of living room, found himself a chair, and clapped his hands. One of the women brought in a tray of water and synth-dough.

  It was a shaking effort to nibble sedately at the food instead of wolfing it. The chief asked the Engineers their names and went on to some shrewd questions about the inner planets. Then he came to the point:

  “Why’re ye here?”

  “There was—trouble with the Cincs,” said Davenant. He was faintly surprised that he should take the lead, but Kruse was sitting back and saying nothing, eyes half shut with weariness. “We have to get in touch with the Abbey—with our Order, the Engineers. So we came looking for your people to help us.”

  “Lucky chance for ye,” said Roberts-John. “Ye’d never ’a found the city ’thout our men to guide. It’s well hid.”

  Davenant drew him out on that subject. He learned that the original mutineers had fled in some of the smaller spaceships, after wrecking others which might have been used for pursuit. The old American had long ago been broken up to help build X.

  Now and then the Outlaw outposts had had to fight the Hounds of the Lord—the warrior corps which had since been recruited from exogenes—who had come in ground vehicles. But the confusion left after the mutiny, and the damage done by it, had given time enough to establish this village and hide it well. The nuclear power plant of the spaceship in which this colony’s founder had arrived had been moved underground—compact and shielded as it had been, that had meant a heart breaking job to furnish energy. Likewise her chemical air renewer had been removed. Indeed, most of the vessel had been utilized. A food-synthesis unit had been taken along as well as other equipment.

  Ice had been mined, some of it electrolyzed for oxygen. In general, the builders of Jupiter City had repeated the pattern which had made X, although on a smaller scale and under immensely greater difficulties. Raids had later furnished more materials, fuel for the atomic engine, tools, fabrics, weapons, and supplemental food.

  This place radiated heat, but not enough to be detectable through the overlying rocks and glaciers. It contained plenty of metal, but scattered iron deposits confused magnetic locators. As for visible surface traces—Ganymede was large and the Godwin country was some of the wildest and most rugged on the satellite.

  Davenant could fill in a good deal of history for himself. He had read how the first generation here had been skilled engineers, but because of the shortage of books, the impossibility of proper instruction, most of their knowledge had died with them. Hereditary monarchy had been inevitable—one family supported by the rest, with leisure to learn, by rote, the operation and servicing of the machinery on which life depended, and with an intelligence sharpened enough to make basic decisions. The rest merely obeyed orders and spent their lives in a dullness relieved only by work, fighting, and the orgies which followed victory.

  They had their religion—which had been corrupted into sheer paganism—their taboos, a few songs and stories, their dimming traditions. Otherwise there was nothing.

  “I’d like to see your power plant,” said Davenant. “That sort of thing was my special job at home. Without expert care, it will sooner or later fail.” A bribe.

  Roberts-John seemed to know it was. “What d’ye want of us?” he demanded again. “S’posin’ we ’greed t’ help ye, what c’d we do?”

  “That,” said Davenant bleakly, “is what I am wondering.”

  -9-

  Kruse spoke up then, and told of all that had been happening to the survey party of Engineers. Robert-John nodded, saying little. How much of it he really understood was a question.

  Davenant felt a stinging in his eyes. Lyell, Falkenhorst, Yuan, Yamagata, they had all been so close and dear to him, and now they lay dead in the snow. They sprawled frozen on the face of the moon, their burst eyes gaping sightlessly at Jupiter and the great wheel of stars. Their bodies were blocks of ice, their brains held only a hollow and everlasting darkness. Farewell, my brothers!

  Davenant shoved such thought away. Time later to mourn. He was still alive, and he had a mission. He had eaten and drunk in this oddly civilized home of a barbarian king, and now he had to start planning.

  “Ye can jine with us,” suggested Roberts-John. “We can always use a tech. Mebbe when your friends come from Earth, ye can get in touch with ’em.”

  Kruse rubbed his chin. “How about that, Hall? I can’t say I fancy turning cave dweller for the next one to five years, but it may be the only way.”

  Davenant shook his head. It did not occur to him that he had taken the leadership. But there it was again.

  “Not good enough,” he said. “The Cincs may destroy this nest at any time, or they may decide to abandon the terraforming idea, which presumably originated with the Psychotechs. In which case we’ll never get off this moon. It’s more than us, Torvald, though God knows I don’t want to play hero. The Abbey has to be told. How can the Abbey plan if it doesn’t have the facts?”

  Kruse gave him a sour grin. “All right, then. What do you plan on doing?”

  “Let’s first take a look at your power plant here, Chief Roberts,” suggested Davenant. “I’m not sure I like those occasional flickers in the lighting.”

  Kruse showed a moment’s surprise. He knew as well as the younger Engineer that the cause was nothing worse than a faulty turbogenerator. Clamping expressionlessness onto his face, he nodded and rose.

  “I think Hall may be right,” he said noncommittally.

  Roberts-John looked alarmed, and led the way out and through a descending series of tunnels. Davenant’s general unit, adjusted to Geiger registry, showed more radiation than there ought to be, not enough not enough for real worry. Faulty shielding.

  He traced that quickly. Some of the lead blocks in front of the reactor had slipped, perhaps in one of the frequent moonquakes caused by the tidal pull of Jupiter. Otherwise the power plant was in fairly good shape. It had been well constructed, and had been tended with care.

  He shook his head dolefully and glanced at the row of meters, remote-control dials, and instruments. “Do you know what these are for?” he asked the Outlaw ruler.

  “Some of ’em. When this here needle gets near th’ red line, I pull out that there rod, an’—” The chief went on to reveal a scanty, barely adequate empirical knowledge of maintenance.

  “I thought so.” Davenant pointed to a gauge whose indicator was well past the red. It showed merely that the original slugs were sufficiently enriched with new isotopes to be worth removing and replacing. “How long has this been that way?”

  “Long’s I c’n remember. Ye don’t think—”

  “I do. The hypewangle isn’t dreel-sprailing with the camits. Lucky for you that the effect builds up slowly, but I wouldn’t give this thing another five years of life unless something’s done. Look!” Davenant tapped a few buttons, emergency manual cutoff. Needles wobbled across the dials and the lights went out. The chief roared and sprang for him. Kruse held the frantic man back until Davenant had restored functioning.

  “Don’t do that!” Sweat drained from Roberts-John’s face and he shook uncontrollably. “Don’t do it!”

  “I was only testing the hypostat,” Davenant said mildly. “It doesn’t fantangle as it should. Unless you let me make some badly needed repairs, you’ll be frozen to death in a few years.”

  “I—I—I—” Roberts-John gulped. Mastering himself, he asked with a savage bark, “How d’ I know ye’re not a Cinc sent t’ wreck th’ whole town?”

  “I’ll be here, too,” Davenant pointed out. “Give me a few days and I’ll have this thing purring…”

  By the end of that time, though, Hall Davenant was close to being the absolute ruler of Jupiter City. The man who straightened out the reactor, fixed the electric generator running off it, and cannibalized a dozen dead helmet radios to produce half as many operating ones, inevitably would be.

  Roberts-John was too proud to be obsequious, but too intelligent to resent a better man for the job than he was himself. Behind his mane and beard was a clever, queerly altruistic personality. Davenant found it rather embarrassing to turn down his offer of temporary wives. It wasn’t morals so much as appearance and cleanliness. Kruse was not as fastidious.

  The Venusian regarded him out of a grease-smudged face and said in the Basic they used here between themselves,

  “Nice going, But now what?”

  “Now,” said Davenant thoughtfully, “we’d better find a way to reach the Starshine.”

  “Huh?”

  “Of course. Unless you have some scheme for recapturing the Light or grabbing X’s one deep-space cruiser, it’s the only craft in the Jovian System capable of reaching Luna. The Psychotechs didn’t have a chance to escape with her…How badly wrecked is that rocket we fled in?”

  Kruse closed his eyes and summoned up eidetic memory. “Maybe it could be repaired,” he said at last. “I don’t think anything is too badly damaged. Of course, you’re assuming the Jovians haven’t salvaged it yet… No. I see it now. The boat runs off chemical fuel and isn’t designed to get far from the surface. Even in perfect shape, it couldn’t get up to the Starshine’s orbit. Thrust’s too low by a factor of—um, I’d say between one and a half and two.”

  Davenant slapped the shielding of the town’s reactor. “This baby once ran a pretty good-sized spaceship. Lots of energy there.”

  “And I can just see our hosts letting us take it.”

  “Not at all. I was thinking of a power-beam.”

  “Huh? Nobody’s ever run a rocket off a power-beam!”

  “There’s always a first time. Let me think, now…How’s this sound? When you get out there with your salvage party, scrap the whole drive system and replace it with a king-sized tank for water, a power-beam receiver, and an electrical hookup. The idea will be to boil water around superheated coils, blow it out the rear past an ionizing arc, and use a linac system to accelerate the ions still further. Essentially a crude version of the present-day space drive. The whole thing will run off a beam from here. Naturally, you’ll have to give the boat a feed-back signal to keep the beam aimed right.”

  “That,” said Kruse, “would make good continuity from some stereo serial, but you know as well as I do that it calls not only for construction from the ground up but for design—and we haven’t much more than a slide rule in this place. I’m not Chief Scientist Young of the Junior Intergalactic Patrol.”

  “You are an Engineer,” Davenant said quietly.

  They got to work.

  The job was not quite as fantastic as it sounded. They were aiming only to get off a small world with negligible air resistance, and not even to leave its gravity well entirely. The principles involved were familiar to both, the basic design, standard in such midget craft as the asteroid scooter.

  There was a good deal of machinery from the Outlaw’s original spaceship, stored away for ultimate use as scrap. The colony had no projects calling for multi-element vacuum tubes, astrogating robopilots, high-voltage arcs, or a hundred other parts.

  Davenant’s idea was easy to draw up, even to make some elementary calculations about. More than that, a Planetary Engineer had training for his profession such as had never been seen before. He didn’t have to stew for weeks before seeing the answer to a problem.

  His subconscious mind collaborated all the time.

  In about two revolutions of Ganymede, the plans were ready. And the parts and tools which would be required were loaded up.

  The main difficulty was testing. There just wouldn’t be any way to get all the bugs out.

  Whoever piloted that boat would have to hope it stayed in one piece for the few hours needed!

  Kruse took out a gang of men, dragging sleds piled high with equipment and supplies. Davenant stayed behind to supervise the construction of a power-beamer.

  When he told Roberts-John what he wanted, the chief exploded.

  “No!” he cried with horror.

  “But—”

  “No! ’Twas bad enough taking so much of our stuff for fixing that boat.”

  Davenant had had to promise all sorts of benefits which the Order would supply in exchange. But Roberts-John still shook his head.

  “We can’t spare the men neither, not really,” he said. “Somebody’s got to watch the passes leading here.” He tugged at his beard. “Now ye want to stick up a mast that’ll yell to the Cincs where we are. Uh-uh! ”